Chapter published in:
The Social Dynamics of Pronominal Systems: A comparative approach
Edited by Paul Bouissac
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 304] 2019
► pp. 205–217

The Chinese pronominal system and identity construction via self-reference

| Dalian University of Foreign Languages, China
| Northeast Normal University, China
In the Chinese pronominal system, the first-person singular pronoun wǒ is the unmarked or grammatical form of the speaker’s reference to himself/herself, which is deictic in nature. In daily conversation, however, other deictic expressions such as plural first-person and second-person pronouns, and even non-deictic proper names and descriptive expressions, can be employed to convey self-referential meanings. By analyzing the data collected from an authoritative Chinese corpus, we claim that self-reference is not merely the marking of the speaker’s participant role but a process of identity foregrounding or ad hoc identity construction exploited by the speaker in communication. This identity construction via self-reference reflects the dynamics and complexity of self-reference in verbal interaction.
Keywords: Chinese pronominal system, self-reference, identity foregrounding, ad hoc identity construction, corpus
Published online: 23 July 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.304.08xue
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